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Nondual Highlights Issue #2031 Sunday, January 16, 2005 Editor: Mark
Everyone
knows that some events are just bad and make you sad or angry,
and some are good and make you glad.
Yet what everyone knows might not be true.
For example, there might be a certain coercion to the attitude
that weddings must be happy and funerals have to be sad. It could
prevent you from meeting the moment you are in.
What if events don't have to be anything other than what they
are? Children laugh at funerals; some tears shed by brides are
from disappointment rather than joy. Being fired or losing
someone dearly beloved could open an unexpectedly beautiful new
life.
You might be armored against an unpleasant event that turns out
not to be. Instead of wrestling toward what you are convinced
ought to be going on, it might be refreshing to approach events
without armor, meeting their nakedness with your own nakedness.
- John Tarrant, from The Great Way is Not
Difficult If You Just Don't Pick and Choose,
published by Shambhala Sun Magazine, Nov. 2004, posted to
DailyDharma by AniPanchen
Q: How is realisation made possible?
A: There is an absolute Self from which a spark proceeds as from
a fire. The spark is called the ego. In the case of an ignorant
man it identifies itself with an object simultaneously with its
rise. It cannot remain independent of such association with
objects. The association is ajnana or ignorance and its
destruction is the object of our efforts. If its objectifying
tendency is killed it remains pure, and also merges into the
source. The wrong identification with the body is dehatma buddhi
(['I am the body'] idea). This must go before good results
follow.
The 'I' in its purity is experienced in intervals between the two
states or two thoughts. Ego is like that caterpillar, which
leaves its hold only after catching another. Its true nature can
be found when it is out of contact with objects or thoughts. This
ghostly ego which is devoid of form comes into existence by
grasping a form; grasping a form it endures; feeding upon forms
which it grasps it waxes more, leaving one form it grasps another
form, but when sought for it takes to flight.
Only if that first person, the ego, in the form 'I am the body',
exists will the second and third persons [you, he, they etc.]
exist. If by one's scrutinizing the truth of the first person the
first person is destroyed, the second and third persons will
cease to exist and one's own nature, which will then shine as
one, will truly be the state of Self.
The thought 'I am this body of flesh and blood' is the one thread
on which are strung the various other thoughts. Therefore, if we
turn inwards enquiring 'Where is this 'I?' all thoughts
[including the 'I'-thought] will come to an end and
Self-knowledge will then spontaneously shine forth.
- Ramana Maharshi on Self Enquiry, posted to MillionPaths by
Viorica Weissman
Longing
What is this Longing?
Tangled, gnarly root of suffering
And sacred rushing river...
Ever changing
Moving...
Glistening water
Granting Life
How to let the river carry me?
To flow...
To let my thirst be its own answer
Its own quenching cup
And not be like the heedless salmon
Fighting...
Swimming upstream...
Breaking its body against the rocks...
Still, I suppose,
the salmon, too,
like me,
Is only doing what it must.
- posted to nondualnow by Aly
The soul manifests in the world in order that it may experience
the different phases of manifestation, and yet not lose its way,
but regain its original freedom in addition to the knowledge it
has gained in the world. It is not the knowledge of the
individuality which makes one unable to look into reality,
although it keeps one's eyes covered from the vision of reality.
The "false ego" is what that ego has wrongly conceived
to be its own being. It is not that the false ego is "our
ego" and the true ego is the ego of God; it is that the true
ego which is the ego of God has been reduced to a false ego.
Perfect realization can only be gained by passing through all the
stages between humanity, the manifestation of God, and God, the
only Being; knowing and realizing ourselves from the lowest to
the highest point of existence and so accomplishing the heavenly
journey. Those who think that heavenly knowledge is sufficient
are mystical, but the joy of the heavenly knowledge and the full
understanding of it comes from being able to express it in the
world's medium of expression.
- Hazrat Inayat Khan, posted to SufiMystic by Hafizullah
I wish we would never lose each other
but could be lost in one another.
- Soufie, a 12 year old boy, living in Tehran, posted to
truevision by Zen O'Leary
Owls
Snowy owls
lounge in trees
dreaming of lemmings.
Screech owls
tucked in knot holes
dream of the
deliciousness
of frogs
who are hibernating
and deep into
their nightmares
of marauding owls.
© Zen Oleary. January 15, 2005, posted to SufiMystic
